It's in the bag

At the ISM preschool, there’s a substitute teacher who goes by the name of Reshma Chulani. While her students adore her for some inexplicable reason, they know better than to approach her handbag and touch it with their paint-splattered fingers. It’s like they’ve developed some sixth sense, and know that bags and accessories are special objects in the world of their teacher. Since June of last year, when Trousseau was formally set up, Reshma has led a double life: substitute preschool teacher in the morning, and handbag and accessories designer the rest of the day!

This foray into the world of manufacturing, design and fashion shouldn’t come as a surprise. Reshma’s family is in the garments business, producing children’s apparel for export with Crismer, which decades ago, was also known as the manufacturer of the Lady Lou line. As a teenager, growing up in this kind of environment, Reshma would spend countless hours in the factory, creating dresses and clothes for herself and the family, even being assigned her own pattern maker and sewer. Courses in SOFA, and her predilection for collecting bags were two easy starter steps towards her eventually setting up Trousseau. While she lists Goyard, Hermes and LV as her favorite luxury brands for bags, she knew as she started off Trousseau that she would have to create a niche for herself and make a statement via that niche. “Evening bags” and “exotic material” were her battle cries; and for these smaller bags, she would use stingray, ostrich leather, shells from Cebu, snakeskin and textiles such as satin and heavy lace. Found at Itsie Bitsie at Rockwell, and picked by designer Jun Escario as his accessories provider for his 2011 Holiday Collection, Trousseau has gone quite a distance in such a short time.

Reshma gamely recalls how at the start she would create prototypes of her bags and take them out with her at night to gauge reactions, the only embarrassing thing being that at times, the prototypes would be rushed and when friends would scrutinize the bags, they would still be without lining. Her entry level fabric bags start off at the P4,000 range; while the stingray and ostrich skin go for P10,000. With accessories and cuffs now being produced, and bigger tote bags in the design stage, Reshma is ready to tap a younger market and expand beyond the evening bags that placed Trousseau on the local “fashion map.”

A showcase of the stingray evening bags and cuff accessories.

A trusty pen

With some authors, you just know what to expect and can sense they’ll consistently “deliver the goods.” TC Boyle is in a more serious mood with his new novel, but as always, it cooks up much “food for thought.” Jeffrey Archer is a grand old-fashioned storyteller, while Jasper Fforde somehow manages to be literary and ridiculous at the same moment, with hilarious results.

When the Killing’s Done by T. C. Boyle (available at National Bookstore): The environment, eco-warriors and saving our fragile eco-system — these are buzzwords that news reports blare out with regularity; but with this engrossing novel, TC Boyle blows the lid on the whole phenomenon. He scrutinizes the individuals that roam this territory, revealing the tensions, contradictions, and frustrations — how pitched battles can even exist between these eco-warriors. An island off Santa Barbara, California is the bone of contention. Taksue works with the local NGO and in order to protect the indigenous species, is ready to eradicate the interlopers to the island; and she’s up against a local businessman who uses guerilla tactics to push his own agenda of “being green.”

Only Time Will Tell by Jeffrey Archer (available at National Bookstore): For those looking for classic storytelling, Jeffrey Archer is the man! This is the first installment of what promises to be an epic saga, spanning close to a hundred years, and will be known as the Clifton Chronicles. With more twists and turns than our best, most lurid, local “teleserye,” this is one book that should find immediate favor with Filipino readers. Boy from the wrong side of the tracks in a small seaside town near Bristol, England, befriends the son of the local gentry, the Barringtons. That they may be half-brothers, that Harry Clifton may have fallen in love with his half-sister, that revelations and changes in fortune implode, they all add to riveting reading and this is one great guilty pleasure!

Three new novels from authors we can trust to deliver!

One of Our Thursdays is Missing by Jasper Fforde (available at National Bookstore): With Jasper Fforde, it’s always been about conjuring up a magical literary fantasy world and populating said world with interesting characters, out to solve a mystery. His creation, female detective Thursday, is back for this new outing; and if not the Thursday we’ve come to know, it’s the “textual” Thursday, the character who springs from the pages of her novels. This textual Thursday inhabits a literary world that exists, breathes and lives outside the pages from where they originated  such is the conceit of this novel. When the Thursday of the “real world” goes missing, it is left to our ‘text’ Thursday to search for her, and uncover machinations and conspiracies that emanate from the “Bookworld.”